Manager Environmental Social Governance
Manager Environmental Social Governance
Corporate Affairs
Works in Utrecht and from home
Lives in Utrecht
At VodafoneZiggo since July 2020
Wiebe Govers lives life with a positive attitude and a bright outlook on the future. This makes him perfectly suited for his role as Manager Environmental Social Governance at VodafoneZiggo. Together with his team, he puts themes such as sustainability and social impact on agendas throughout the organisation. And that’s not all: "We make big, idealistic objectives practically feasible."
Wiebe joined VodafoneZiggo in the Brand Team, where he worked on a major strategic project to give the existing Ziggo brand a modern touch. During a chat with his manager one day, he expressed his desire to grow into a leadership role with deeper societal impact. His ambitions were taken seriously; he was given the opportunity to become Manager Environmental Social Governance, and took it.
Wiebe now works in a team with six colleagues. Together, they ensure that VodafoneZiggo operates in a socially responsible manner, and that the company makes sustainable choices and sticks to them. "My team and I strive to make VodafoneZiggo’s societal impact as positive as can be," explains Wiebe. "We focus on three main areas, obviously: Environment, Social and Governance (ESG). The aim ultimately is to act responsibly towards our planet, employees, society and organisation as a whole."
Quite a task, and that’s precisely the challenge of Wiebe’s work. "There are many interests at play: those of legislators, business clients, consumers, investors, you name it. In order to comply with national and international climate legislation, for instance, we need to reduce our CO2 emissions. Now, that’s certainly a very positive objective, but becoming more sustainable requires constant attention. And you have to keep investors on board at the same time. Quite a challenging puzzle!”
That’s why change, according to Wiebe, is best effected in small steps. "Say we want to make our services more accessible. First, we’ll chart the various channels through which customers come into contact with us. Then, we select one of them, our website, for instance. Is it legible for people with poor vision, or should the contrast be upped a bit? Does it work in combination with software that reads out what is written on screen? As soon as we have the answers to such questions, we set up a project in the appropriate department. That’s how we break down big, idealistic objectives into bite-sized, practicably feasible chunks."
It’s very important in his work to think in terms of possibilities, says Wiebe. "Because let’s be honest, in a large organisation like ours, not everyone jumps for joy at the thought of change. You can’t expect people to do things in a completely different way from one day to the next. Hence the small steps. That’s why I try to pass on my positive attitude to my colleagues, and schedule a lot of one-on-ones. It’s important always to celebrate each small step in the right direction together."
As with the rest of the organisation, Wiebe’s team is given the space to organise their work as they see fit. "The freedom you have to be yourself makes for a very open and spirited team vibe. The different nationalities and cultures really contribute to that. Our French colleague, for instance, almost fell off her chair when someone suggested having a typical Dutch lunch: enjoying a fluffy, white cheese roll while out walking together. To her, eating isn’t a mere practical necessity, it’s all about l’emotion!"
Wiebe’s positive attitude and strategic focus are always directed towards the bigger picture. Every now and then, he explains, everything comes together. "Sometimes, legislation, our own objectives and a client request align perfectly." Like the other day, when his team was tasked to perform a lifecycle analysis.
Wiebe: “One of our clients wanted to know the total environmental impact of a product. Luckily, we’d already been working on such analyses for a while. We already expected that companies would want access to information like that at some point, in order to map their emissions. That’s why we were able to send out those analyses to the client immediately, which naturally felt really good. My goal for the future is to bring many more seemingly unrelated interests and circumstances into alignment, like we did in this example. That would be great not just for our team, but for the rest of the organisation as well. I’m one hundred percent sure we’ll get there, step by step!”
